Article for repairing drop-action pianos

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are an article and method that make it possible to lessen remarkably the time and labor required for replacing brittle or broken shoes or elbows in drop-action pianos. I provide a shoe that has a vertically extending cushioned slot in its wippen end. This makes it possible to snap the shoe or elbow into place, in contact with the pin in the wippen, obviating the necessity in a shoe-replacement job of removing the piano to the tuner&#39;&#39;s shop and withdrawing the wippens from the action and withdrawing and reinserting of the wippen pins, as has hitherto customarily been necessary in such a job.

United States Patent [72] lnventor Ernest Vagias 265 Prospect St., Baden, Pa. 15005 [21] Apple No. 875,694 [22] Filed Nov. 12, 1969 [45] Patented Aug. 3, 1971 [54] ARTICLE FOR REPAIRING DROP-ACTION PIANOS 4 Claims, 2 Drawing Figs.

[52] 11.8. C1 84/240, 84/251 [51] Int.Cl Gl0c3/l8 [50} Field 01 Search 84/251, 240, 242, 241

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,260,310 10/1941 Gould 84/240 2,548,890 4/1951 Knoblaugh 84/240 2,610,358 9/1952 Martin 84/251 (UX) 2,641,828 6/1953 Knoblaugh 84/251 (UX) 3,171,320 3/1965 Underwood 84/240 Primary Examiner-Richard B. Wilkinson Assistant Examiner-John F. Gonzales Attorney-Brown, Murray, Flick & Peckham ABSTRACT: Disclosed are an article and method that make it possible to lessen remarkably the time and labor required for replacing brittle or broken shoes or elbows in drop-action pianos. I provide a shoe that has a vertically extending cushioned slot in its wippen end. This makes it possible to snap the shoe or elbow into place, in contact with the pin in the wippen, obviating the necessity in a shoe-replacement job of removing the piano to the tuners shop and withdrawing the wippens from the action and withdrawing and reinserting of the wippen pins, as has hitherto customarily been necessary in such a job.

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ERNEST 46/445 M 7/ A I farneys BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to a method and article for repairing drop-action pianos, and in particular, to a shoe-replacement job.

2. Description of the Prior Art Drop-action pianos such as spinets are familiar to the tuners and repairers of pianos. The action of such a piano comprises a key supported pivotally in the vicinity of its middle, having at one end the customary ivory and at the other end a connection with a lifter wire or abstract. The top of the lifter wire or abstract is connected to the hidden part of the key, and the bot tom of the lifter wire has on it a piece called a shoe or elbow. The shoe or elbow connects the wire to the wippen, which contacts a jack that causes the hammer to strike the piano string.

Until about a dozen years ago, shoes or elbows were usually made of wood, but at about that time, piano manufacturers began to make pianos in which the shoes or elbows were made of plastic. It sometimes happens that the plastic becomes brittle or broken with age. The task of repairing a piano, when this happens, is arduous.

The shoes or elbows commercially available at the time of the making of this invention are not provided with means whereby they may readily be connected to the appropriate pin, recessed in a slot, of the corresponding wippen. The elbows commercially available merely have, in the vicinity of the end remote from the point of attachment of the elbow to the lifter wire a horizontally extending hole, through which the pin of the wippen is to be attached. This has meant that it is necessary, in doing a shoe-replacement job, to remove the wippen from the action, pull the pin out of the wippen, slide the appropriate end of the new shoe into the recess or slot that contains the pin in the wippen, get the hole in the wippen end of the shoe aligned with the holes that support the ends of the wippen pin, reinsert the wippen pin, and cut and file its ends. It is then necessary to reinsert the wippen into the action. These steps need to be repeated for each of the 88 keys of the piano. Accordingly, a shoe-replacement job has usually required,

' prior to this invention, about hours of labor. The task is so time consuming that it is ordinarily necessary for a piano technician to remove the entire action of the piano to his shop. This is necessitated by the consideration that the wippen needs to be removed in order to get the pin out of it. Moreover, care must be taken that each of the 88 wippens is restored to its own proper place in the action after it has been worked upon. In the state of the art prior to this invention, few kinds of piano-repair work have been more costly to the piano owner, and less lucrative for the piano repairer, than a shoereplacement job.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION I provide a shoe that has, in place of the usual hole on its wippen end, a vertically extending slot, cushioned with felt or Teflon or other suitable material, and of such dimensions as to permit the pin in the wippen to be received therein, snapping into place. With the invention, a drop-action piano can have its 88 shoes replaced in about 1 hour of labor, and without the need for removing the action from the piano to the piano technicians shop.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS A complete understanding of my invention may be had from the foregoing and following description thereof, taken together with the appended drawings, in which:

FIG. It shows the novel shoe or elbow of my invention, used in practicing the method of my invention; and

FIG. 2 is a schematic showing of a drop-type piano action, provided with a shoe in accordance with the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a shoe or elbow 2 that has, as is customary, an upper surface 4 having therein a cavity 6, by means of which it may be attached to a lifter wire, abstract, or sticker not shown). At its other end, there is a portion 8 of somewhat diminished thickness, compared with the remainder of the body of the shoe or elbow 2. The portion 8 is of such thickness as to enable it to be inserted in a suitable slot in the bottom of the wippen, in the part of the wippen where there is the pin by means of which the shoe is joined to the wippen. Extending vertically downward from the upper surface 10 of the portion 8 of the shoe 2 there is a slot 12 that is of such dimensions as to permit the pin of a wippen to be snugly received therein by snap action. The slot 12 is also provided with cushioning material. Although this may be done by gluing a strip of felt to the appropriate parts of the shoe or elbow, I find that I prefer to provide the cushioning material by. preparing an insert 14 of suitable material, such as polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon) or a similar synthetic resinous material. In general, however, the insert 14 may comprise any suitable cushioning material. If the entire shoe is made of cast nylon or the like, it may be possible to dispense with the use of an insert 14, relying upon the nylon for the desired cushioning effect.

The slot 12 is described above as extending vertically, and this is desirable since it ensures that when the key of the piano is depressed, the wippen will be raised (as hereinafter explained). The slot 12 need not be vertical in all cases, however; it may be slanted or even horizontal, so long as its location is not such as to cause difficulty in connecting it to the appropriate pin in the wippen, and so long as the shoe remains satisfactorily in place when the piano is played.

Referring now to FIG. 2, I shall disclose how the shoe of the invention is connected and used in a spinet or similar piano of the drop-action type. In FIG. 2, there is seen the key 15 of the piano, pivoted at 16 and having at its hidden end 18 a suitable connection of a kind well known to those skilled in the art with the upper end 20 of the lifter wire 22. The lower end 24 of the lifter wire 22 is screwed into or otherwise suitably joined with the shoe 26, which corresponds to the shoe 2 mentioned above. The other end of the shoe 26 is joined to the wippen 28 by means of the wippen pin 30. Depressing the key 15 thus causes the wippen 28 to be raised, raising the jack 32 and causing the hammer 34 to strike the piano string (not shown).

In repairing, in accordance with my invention, a piano that is in need of having its shoes replaced, it is not necessary to remove the action from the instrument. It is possible merely to break away or remove from the wippen pin 30 the brittle or broken shoe, unscrewing or detaching its other end from the lifter wire. Then, the lifter wire 22 is screwed into the cavity 6 of the new shoe 26 or is otherwise suitably attached to the shoe, and the shoe 26 is snapped into place against the wippen pin 30. The entire operation of replacing 88 shoes can thus be completed in about 1 hour.

The novel shoe of my invention may be made of any suitable material, but preferably of a synthetic resinous material (plastic) that does not embrittle substantially with age in less than about 10 years. Although manufacturers of pianos were attracted to the use of plastic shoes in place of wooden ones by apparent cost savings in the manufacturing process, their recent experiences with failures of spinets containing plastic shoes have cast some doubt upon the feasibility of using plastic shoes. With my novel shoe, however, it will be feasible to use plastic shoes in new spinets, since the labor or replacing them is so greatly lessened.

The novel shoe of my invention has usefulness in the manufacture of drop-action pianos as original assembly of the piano but also yielding, when the drop-action piano is completed, a

structure than is characterized by the advantage that it is more easily repaired whenever there develops any difficulty of the kind that requires removal of the action of the piano, such as a bent or loose spoon or trouble with the dampers.

While I have shown and described herein certain embodiments of my invention, I intend to cover as well any change or modification therein that may be made without departing from its spirit and scope.

I claim as my invention:

1. A shoe for use in a drop-action piano, said shoe being formed from plastic material and characterized in that said shoe has in the vicinity of one end thereof a slotlike opening of such dimensions as to be capable of receiving snugly by snap action a wippen pin, said plastic material having a degree of 

1. A shoe for use in a drop-action piano, said shoe being formed from plastic material and characterized in that said shoe has in the vicinity of one end thereof a slotlike opening of such dimensions as to be capable of receiving snugly by snap action a wippen pin, said plastic material having a degree of resiliency which permits said wippen pin to be permanently held snugly within said opening without the aid of additional fastening elements.
 2. A shoe as defined in claim 1, characterized in that said slotlike opening extends substantially vertically downward from an upper surface of said shoe.
 3. A shoe as defined in claim 1, characterized in that said slotlike opening is interiorly lined with an insert of synthetic resinous material.
 4. A shoe as defined in claim 3, characterized in that said slotlike opening extends substantially vertically downward from an upper surface of said shoe. 